In her recent “Trending” article (Life & Arts, October 11/12) titled “Beware the Forever 35-Year-Old Face”, Jo Ellison examines the growing obsession with aesthetic perfection and the surge in cosmetic enhancements, which she claims are blurring generational identity. From cheek fillers to eyelid lifts, Ellison critiques what she calls the “golden age of surgery,” where facial procedures have become commonplace among celebrities, influencers, and everyday individuals. She argues that this pursuit of eternal youth, driven by social media trends and AI-filtered ideals, risks creating a homogenized, artificial beauty standard that ultimately undermines individuality and authenticity across generations.
Jo Ellison’s ‘Trending’ article (Life & Arts, October 11/12) is a timely reflection of common misperceptions about the state of cosmetic medicine and surgery today. Current advances in non-surgical facial restoration allow seamless, age-appropriate rejuvenation, and explain why many ‘gracefully aging’ people look their best and never look ‘done’ (contrast handsome Tom Cruise vs distorted Simon Cowell, both in their mid-sixties but clearly getting different levels of care). However this expertise is rare, and something of a horror-movie scenario is going on. Of course, many want to look better or fit competitive norms, but the demand outweighs the availability of good work. Hence the proliferation of inexpert care, that shows as lumps, chipmunk faces, and a loss of individuality.
Revolutionary age-reversing advances have come from dermatology and plastic surgical specialties, which offer the most detailed training in the cosmetic field, but these core specialties produce a minority of the current practitioners, with only around 75 graduating in the UK yearly (around 750 in the US), and many of them have no interest in the cosmetic field. You can see the kind of vacuum created for everyone with a basic health degree to jump on the bandwagon and cash in (UK regulations have loose standards in this regard). Today’s Hit or Miss cosmetic field is the result of core physicians’ talent and competence being diluted in a tsunami of commercialization and loss of expertise, with an industry eager to sell its products, using paid influencers and careless social media. The outcome is the many disfigured faces even among celebrity figures, facing often repulsed onlookers. Surely, current non-invasive techniques might not compete with a perfectly executed surgical job, but a lot of the current migration into surgery is prompted by anxiety about avoiding the over-injected look, which requires research and often a deep pocket, but might end up falling into the irreversibly botched surgery, as people will seek less competent, cheaper surgeons.
It is ok to embrace whatever makes one feel good about themselves. But extremes are scary. Sephora kids might soon evolve into injection junkie teenagers (it is already happening in some areas). There is immense beauty in seeing how good work touches people’s lives. Unfortunately, where there is beauty emerges a beast.
Dany Touma, MD
Beirut and Dubai